Best Bars in America: Esquire's Annual List

Our annual celebration is once again guided by Esquire's favorite drinking partner and the world's foremost cocktail historian, David Wondrich. It's a tricky time for bars: are they places to escape reality, or are they places to marvel at how a drink gets made? As well as adding to our ever-growing list, we assess the state of things: the bars, the bartenders, the drinkers. Drinking itself. — Esquire Editors

The Woodsman Tavern

The Woodsman Tavern

Portland, Oregon

You're having: A pint of cask ale, a half dozen raw oysters

The Woodsman Tavern is like a rich man's hunting lodge: rustic but not too rustic and conspicuously well stocked with the good things in life: numerous Belgian beers on tap, cask ales, well-made cocktails, raw oysters and clams, a selection of country hams, carefully chosen wines and spirits. It would almost make you tired — if it weren't all so damn good.

Smuggler's Cove

Smuggler's Cove

San Francisco

You're having: An Expedition (in the take-home mug)

On the outside, there's nothing — a bland, unmarked storefront on a quiet side street. Inside, there's a wooden pirate ship contorted in such a way that it fits into a concrete cube, with a bar as cockpit, another belowdecks, and a little seating area aloft. The bartender is flailing about like a heavy-metal drummer, desperately beating eight, ten, fourteen ingredients into towering, elaborately garnished concoctions. Strange words fly about — hogo, agricole, solera, orgeat — and the heady perfume of distilled sugarcane fills the air. Tiki. But, of course, you can't wander into Smuggler's Cove by accident. As San Francisco's and perhaps the nation's reigning Tiki bar, it draws a crowd almost every night, and you've got to wait outside until there's space. It's worth the wait. (Tip: If the drinks are too sweet — even the best Tiki drinks, and these are the best, tend to lay on the sugar — it's got one of the world's great sipping-rum collections.)